Our new goal is to build another house and to struggle to find a way to get money for paying school fees for our seven children. We want to build another house because the one that we are currently living in has grown old. It has always been our wish to build another house but due to financial constraints and the burden of paying school fees for the children, we have not been able to. We usually practice small-scale subsistence farming and we also usually do casual jobs to earn a living where the money earned usually goes to school fee payment for the children.

GiveDirectly is not biased at all in enrolling people into their program. They do not care about your financial status as long as you belong to the village of interest. That is what I liked about them. I do not see anything that I will recommend them to change, and hence I would like to urge them to keep up the good work.

We spent KES 40000 of the recent transfer on paying school fees for three of my seven children, one who is in college and the other two are in secondary school. Paying school fees has always been our biggest challenge since we do not have stable sources of income. We are thus grateful to GiveDirectly for coming through for us at a time when we were wondering where we were going to get the money to do so. We have hence had some peace of mind having done so and we have had time to think of other things to do. With the remaining amount of money, we used it in buying some household items and food for our consumption.

With the poor connectivity of the cellphone's network around my household, I could not realize earlier that the transfer was already in my account. At around 9 am, I got the information from my neighbors who were passing by my household as they head to the nearby shopping center to make their withdrawals. With my family, we had to check the account balances, and lucky enough I received a message that confirmed the receipt. We were very excited and with all the plans in place, I had to visit the shopping center as well, where I withdrew all the amount that I had received.

The biggest difference in my daily life is the relief of clearing school fees for my two children. I had been dependent on the construction work and the casual chores that were sometimes hard to find and would pay less for a huge task. I am grateful to have paid all the term's fees, and I am well set to pay at ease in the future since I already have an additional cow that will potentially increase the production of milk that will earn more income thus making it easier to raise the required amount in school.

After the exciting news of the receipt of my first transfer, I had to work on the projects that I had enlisted with my family. On top of the list was to purchase a lactating cow but due to the high prices in the market then, I managed to secure a 3-months in-calf heifer at KES 35000 that I am hoping to start enjoying its productivity in six months. With the two dairy cows that I already had, I am looking forward to an easy time that I will be selling milk to sort all the household bills and the school fees for my children. I also spent KES m18000 of the remaining amount on settling school fees for my two children in secondary school, and the last bit of it on buying foodstuff for my family of seven. I am grateful to this far and looking forward to the second transfer as this will also be useful in starting other new projects.